CENTRE SIMON WIESENTHAL - EUROPE
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Wiesenthal Centre to Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE): "Stop 'Housewitz' Obscene European Dance Ad Epidemic"

In a letter to Mr Dimitrij Rupel, Chairman-in-Office of the 55 State Party OSCE, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Affairs, Dr Shimon Samuels, protested "the outrageous film clip entitled 'Housewitz' presented on the website http://www.geenstijl.nl/filmpjes/housewitz.swf".

Samuels explained that "Geenstijl, a notoriously irreverent web log with 60,000 daily visitors, has gone beyond the bounds of freedom of expression to an unprecedented level of obscenity. Its disclaimer is an empty exercise pandering to the 'music' assets of the Skinhead community and the much broader raver world beyond."

The letter added, " 'Housewitz' presents the Auschwitz extermination process as a house concert with DJ Nazis, 'skinny Jews', 'Tanzen macht frei', against a backdrop of Holocaust atrocities."

"Launched on 4 May 2005, 'Yom Hashoah' or Holocaust Commemoration Day, this phenomenon has now spread to Belgium (concerts entitled 'Puree Soirée

Housewitz') and to Poland where such websites as www.budowa.info.pl and http://forum.tuning-pc.pl present 'Housewitz' as in the spirit of a 'contemporary Monty Python'.

The Centre urged the OSCE, "on the basis of its resolutions at the Berlin and Cordoba conferences on 'Antisemitism and Other Forms of Racism' to call on the Netherlands, Belgium and Poland to immediately stop the spread of this pernicious nihilism across the OSCE region."

Samuels advised the OSCE that he would "also raise this matter for investigation and action at your September Human Dimension discussions of the Office for Democracy and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Warsaw."

For further information, please contact Shimon Samuels at +33 6 09 77 01 58.

Visit our web site at http://www.wiesenthal-europe.com